How dreadful that, although you're made
for great and splendid things,
this unjust fate of yours
withholds success, encouragement;
you're held back by mean usage,
by indifference and pettiness.
And how horrible the day when you give in
(the day you, letting yourself fall, give in),
and leave, a traveller to Sousa,
going to King Artaxerxes
who receives you favourably at court,
presenting you with satrapies and such.
And you, despairingly, accept
these things you never really wanted.
Your heart is torn between its yearning for
the one life and its mourning for the other.
The citizens' and sophists' praise,
that hard-won, priceless plaudit;
the agora, the theatre, the victors' crowns.
How will Artaxerxes give you that?
How will your satrapy provide it?
And lacking it, what kind of life will you construct?
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